Online students connect off line with ‘geosocial’ networking

By Dennis Carter, Assistant Editor

June 2nd, 2011

Double Dutch could be on more campuses later this year.

Because an online college student might want to meet a classmate the old-fashioned way – face to face – Arizona State University (ASU) has a social networking platform that helps students spot each other on their laptops and smart phones.

More than 600 ASU Online students are connected to spark, a “geosocial” site that allows students to check in when they enter a library, coffee shop, or anywhere else in their community. The hope is that other ASU web-based students will see a virtual classmate in a nearby coffee shop and stop by to say hello.

The spark site, powered by San Francisco-based Double Dutch, is similar to other geosocial or geo-tagging services like Foursquare, Yelp, Gowalla, and Facebook Places.

Instead of posting your location on a vast social network – especially Facebook Places – spark is only accessible to ASU Online students with university-issued eMail address, creating “micro-communities based on place-based networks,” said Lawrence Coburn, Double Dutch CEO.